Slight Severe Threat

With some cold air aloft and some heating at the earth's surface, there is a slight chance for some severe storms late this afternoon with the primary threat being hail.

The best combination of low level winds and instability is located in extreme southwest Missouri at this writing. A few storms may pop up in this area later this afternoon.

Chase of April 9th, 2009

Chase Summary

I hung out in Claremore, OK where I was set to report in our 5 o'clock but couldn't get through to the station although Skype technology was working fine. I decided to head east on Hwy 20 which seemed like a good idea until it stopped being a nice four lane and turned into a twist and wind headache which included a hairpin turn!! Wow, it even had a hand-painted sign which said "Dead Man's Turn" which for a second I laughed at but then lucky decided to take seriously.
I set up for the second live report in our six about 10 miles west of Jay, again had a great shot using Skype and the comedy of errors continued when a mere 10 seconds before I was set to talk to Jill, my laptop when into hibernate! The inverter had been switched off and the battery died.

I DID stumble across a very interesting circulation at 20 and 59 in Jay which I will post in a minute.

The whole chase I was south of the only tornado in NE OK and if I had taken I-44 back home I might have seen it. Oh well.

Add to this forgetting to put a tape in my video camera and not having cash for toll booths and getting back to live tornado warning coverage and it was an interesting chase day.

FYI, live streaming through Severe Studios would work for a few mintues and then crash so I eventually turned it off. But I think these issues can be worked out.

Wow, An Interesting Period 3/7 through 3/13

SMILE (strict model interpretation laughable or eventful) is in full mode here BUT it sure looks like this weekend and early next will be "spring" stormy. The system to follow later in the week looks colder at this point which is all I feel comfortable commenting on for now except to say that it looks wet whatever season it decides to mimic!

Weekend Chase Possible

Although there are some disagreements in the long range models, it does seem possible that severe weathet will occur somewhere in the central U.S. Saturday, Sunday or perhaps both days.

As usual, this time of year, Ilike to see at least a 3-4 day period where the Gulf remains intouched by cold fronts. I thought this was true last week for this past weekend and it ended up the complete opposite (strong northerly wind over the Gulf and nearly a foot of snow in portions of the Ozarks!) so I'm cautiously optimistic this time around!

Lone Grove Tornado Sends Debris Far

An interesting presentation from the Tulsa National Weather Service Office:

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/tsa/weather-events/briefing_LoneGroveDebris/player.html

CHASE UPDATE - A lesson in the long range!

FYI, I'm a weekend chase warrior for the most part so I'm always optimistic for Saturdays and Sundays.

12z Friday runs show a cold front entering the eastern Gulf on Friday/Saturday. While I'd rather not see that happen, it does appear the trajectories into the southern Plains originate in the Caribbean.

Lee-side cyclogenesis is still progged for Sunday.

Of course all of this is 10 days away and SMILE (strict model interpretation, laughable or eventful) applies!

Update:

O.K. here's the same time as the image above from Monday's 12z run of the GFS. Notice the winds over the western Gulf! 180 degree difference.

Possible Chase 2/28 or 3/1

Well, a lot can happen but it looks like beginning Wednesday 2/25, the intrusion of cold fronts into the Gulf stops. Much depends on whether a prog’d front Friday will indeed hold up over the southern U.S.

All this means that the following weekend should have a quality supply of gulf moisture into the deep south. This coupled with troughing over the western U.S. means this weekend chase warrior has a chance!